''Looking Backward: 2000–1887'' is a
utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...
n
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
novel by
Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 – May 22, 1898) was an American author, journalist, and political activist most famous for his utopian novel ''Looking Backward''. Bellamy's vision of a harmonious future world inspired the formation of numerou ...
, a journalist and writer from
Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts
Chicopee ( ) is a city located on the Connecticut River in Hampden County, Massachusetts, Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 55,560, making it the second-lar ...
; it was first published in 1888.
The book was translated into several languages, and in short order "sold a million copies."
In 2021
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
published "In the 19th-century United States, only ''
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. ...
'' sold more copies in its first years than 'Looking Backward.'
It influenced many intellectuals, and appears by title in many
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
writings of the day. "It is one of the few books ever published that created almost immediately on its appearance a political mass movement".
[Edward Bellamy, ''Looking Backward 2000–1887'', with a Foreword by ]Erich Fromm
Erich Seligmann Fromm (; ; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the U ...
, p. vi. Signet, 1960.
In the United States alone, over 162
"Bellamy Clubs" sprang up to discuss and propagate the book's ideas. Owing to its commitment to the
nationalization
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
of private property and the desire to avoid use of the term "socialism", this political movement came to be known as Nationalism—not to be confused with the political concept of
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
. The novel also inspired several
utopian communities
An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...
.
Synopsis
Bellamy's
time travel
Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...
novel
tells the story of a hero figure named Julian West, a young American, who towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up 113 years later. He finds himself in the same location (
Boston, Massachusetts), but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000, and while he was sleeping, the United States has been transformed into a
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
utopia.
[ The remainder of the book outlines Bellamy's thoughts about improving the future. The major themes include problems associated with capitalism, a proposed socialist solution of a nationalization of all industry, and the use of an "industrial army" to organize production and distribution, as well as how to ensure free cultural production under such conditions.
The young man readily finds a guide, Doctor Leete, who shows him around and explains all the advances of this new age, including drastically reduced working hours for people performing menial jobs and almost instantaneous, internet-like delivery of goods. Everyone retires with full benefits at age 45, and may eat in any of the public kitchens (realized as factory-kitchens in the 1920s–30s in the USSR). The productive capacity of the United States is nationally owned, and the goods of society are equally distributed to its citizens. A considerable portion of the book is dialogue between Leete and West wherein West expresses his confusion about how the future society works and Leete explains the answers using various methods, such as metaphors or direct comparisons with 19th-century society.
Although Bellamy's novel did not discuss technology or the economy in detail, commentators frequently compare ''Looking Backward'' with actual economic and technological developments.][ For example, Julian West is taken to a store which (with its descriptions of cutting out the middleman to cut down on waste in a similar way to the ]consumers' cooperative
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a fo ...
s of his own day based on the ''Rochdale Principles
The Rochdale Principles are a set of ideals for the operation of cooperatives. They were first set out in 1844 by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in Rochdale, England and have formed the basis for the principles on which co-operativ ...
'' of 1844) somewhat resembles a modern warehouse club
A warehouse club (or wholesale club) is a retail store, usually selling a wide variety of merchandise, in which customers may buy large, wholesale quantities of the store's products, which makes these clubs attractive to both bargain hunters ...
like BJ's, Costco, or Sam's Club. He additionally introduces a concept of "credit" cards in chapters 9, 10, 11, 13, 25, and 26, but these actually function like modern debit card
A debit card, also known as a check card or bank card is a payment card that can be used in place of cash to make purchases. The term '' plastic card'' includes the above and as an identity document. These are similar to a credit card, but u ...
s. All citizens receive an equal amount of "credit". Those with more difficult, specialized, dangerous, or unpleasant jobs work fewer hours (in contrast to the real-world practice of paying them more for their efforts of, presumably, the same hours, or of those jobs being filled by members of the impoverished unable to find other forms of employment). Bellamy also predicts both sermons and music being available in the home through cable "telephone" (already demonstrated but commercialized only in 1890 as Théâtrophone
Théâtrophone ("the theatre phone") was a telephonic distribution system available in portions of Europe that allowed the subscribers to listen to opera and theatre performances over the telephone lines. The théâtrophone evolved from a Clément ...
in France).
Bellamy's ideas somewhat reflect classical Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
. In chapter 19, for example, he has the new legal system explained. Most civil suits have ended in socialism, while crime has become a medical issue. The idea of atavism
In biology, an atavism is a modification of a biological structure whereby an ancestral genetic trait reappears after having been lost through evolutionary change in previous generations. Atavisms can occur in several ways; one of which is when ...
, then current, is employed to explain crimes not related to inequality (which Bellamy thinks will vanish with socialism). Remaining criminals are medically treated. One professional judge presides, appointing two colleagues to state the prosecution and defense cases. If all do not agree on the verdict, then it must be tried over. Chapters 15 and 16 have an explanation of how free, independent public art and news outlets could be provided in a more libertarian socialist
Libertarian socialism, also known by various other names, is a left-wing,Diemer, Ulli (1997)"What Is Libertarian Socialism?" The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 4 August 2019. anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarianLong, Roderick T. (201 ...
system. In one case, Bellamy even writes, "the nation is the sole employer and capitalist."
Publication history
The decades of the 1870s and the 1880s were marked by economic and social turmoil, including the Long Depression
The Long Depression was a worldwide price and economic recession, beginning in 1873 and running either through March 1879, or 1896, depending on the metrics used. It was most severe in Europe and the United States, which had been experiencing st ...
of 1873–1879, a series of recession
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...
s during the 1880s, the rise of organized labor
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and Employee ben ...
and strikes, and the 1886 Haymarket affair
The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square (C ...
and its controversial aftermath.[Sylvia E. Bowman, ''The Year 2000: A Critical Biography of Edward Bellamy.'' New York: Bookman Associates, 1958; pp. 87–89.] Moreover, American capitalism's tendency towards concentration into ever larger and less competitive forms—monopolies
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...
, oligopolies
An oligopoly (from Greek ὀλίγος, ''oligos'' "few" and πωλεῖν, ''polein'' "to sell") is a market structure in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of large sellers or producers. Oligopolies often result from ...
, and trusts
A trust is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. In the Anglo-American common law, the party who entrusts the right is known as the "settl ...
—began to make itself evident, while emigration from Europe expanded the labor pool and caused wages to stagnate. The time was ripe for new ideas about economic development which might ameliorate the current social disorder.
Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 – May 22, 1898) was an American author, journalist, and political activist most famous for his utopian novel ''Looking Backward''. Bellamy's vision of a harmonious future world inspired the formation of numerou ...
(1850–1898), a relatively unknown New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
-born novelist with a history of concern with social issues, began to conceive of writing an impactful work of visionary fiction shaping the outlines of a utopian
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...
future, in which production and society were ordered for the smooth production and distribution of commodities to a regimented labor force. In this he was not alone—between 1860 and 1887, no fewer than 11 such works of fiction were produced in the United States by various authors dealing fundamentally with the questions of economic and social organization.
Bellamy's book, gradually planned throughout the 1880s, was completed in 1887 and taken to Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
publisher Benjamin Ticknor, who published a first edition of the novel in January 1888.[Bowman, ''The Year 2000,'' p. 115.] Initial sales of the book were modest and uninspiring, but the book did find a readership in the Boston area, including enthusiastic reviews by future Bellamyites Cyrus Field Willard Cyrus Field Willard (August 17, 1858 – January 17, 1942) was an American journalist, political activist, and theosophist. Deeply influenced by the writing of Edward Bellamy, Willard is best remembered as a principal in several utopian socialist en ...
of the ''Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' and Sylvester Baxter of the ''Boston Herald.''
Shortly after publication, Ticknor's publishing enterprise, Ticknor and Company, was purchased by the larger Boston publisher, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and new publishing plates were created for the book. Certain "slight emendations" were made to the text by Bellamy for this second edition, released by Houghton Mifflin in September 1889.
In its second release, Bellamy's futuristic novel met with enormous popular success, with more than 400,000 copies sold in the United States alone by the time Bellamy's follow-up novel, ''Equality,'' was published in 1897.[Bowman, ''The Year 2000,'' p. 121.] Sales topped 532,000 in the US by the middle of 1939. The book gained an extensive readership in Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
, as well, with more than 235,000 copies sold there between its first release in 1890 and 1935.
The first version of the novel published in China, heavily edited for the tastes of Chinese readers, was titled ''Huitou kan jilüe'' (回頭看記略). This text was later retitled ''Bainian Yi Jiao'' (百年一覺 ), or "A Sleep of 100 Years" and in 1891–1892 this version was serialized in '' Wanguo gongbao'';[Andolfatto, Lorenzo.]
Productive distortions: On the translated imaginaries and misplaced identities of the late Qing utopian novel
PDF version
. ''Transtext(e)s Transcultures'' (跨文本跨文化), 10, 2015. . the organization Guangxuehui (廣學會; Society for Promoting Education) published these pieces in a book format. This first translation, the first piece of science fiction from a Western country published in Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
China, was done in an abridged format by Timothy Richard
Timothy Richard (Chinese: 李提摩太 ''Li Timotai'', 10 October 1845 – 17 April 1919) was a Welsh Baptist missionary to China, who influenced the modernisation of China and the rise of the Chinese Republic.
Biography
Richard was born on ...
.[ Wang, David D. W. "Translating Modernity." In: Pollard, David E. (editor). ''Translation and Creation: Readings of Western Literature in Early Modern China, 1840–1918''. ]John Benjamins Publishing
John Benjamins Publishing Company is an independent academic publisher in social sciences and humanities with its head office in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The company was founded in the 1960s by John and Claire Benjamins and is currently managed ...
, 1998. . Start: p
303
CITED: p
310
The novel was again serialized in China in 1898, in ''Zhongguo guanyin baihua bao'' (中國官音白話報);[ and in 1904, under the title ''Huitou kan'' (Looking Backward), within ''Xiuxiang xiaoshuo'' (繡像小說; Illustrated Fiction).][
The book remains in print in multiple editions, with one publisher alone having reissued the title in a printing of 100,000 copies in 1945.
]
Precursors
Though Bellamy tended to stress the independence of his work, ''Looking Backward'' shares relationships and resemblances with several earlier works—most notably the anonymous ''The Great Romance
''For the silent film see The Great Romance (film)''
''The Great Romance'' is a science fiction and Utopian novel, first published in New Zealand in 1881. It had a significant influence on Edward Bellamy's 1888 ''Looking Backward'', the most po ...
'' (1881), John Macnie
John MacNie (c. 1844 – 31 October 1909), also known by his pen name Ismar Thiusen under which he wrote the novel ''The Diothas''
, was an educator and science fiction writer. Born in Scotland in about 1844, he came to America in 1867 where h ...
's ''The Diothas
''The Diothas; or, A Far Look Ahead'' is a 1883 utopian novel written by John Macnie and published using the pseudonym "Ismar Thiusen". ''The Diothas'' has been called "perhaps the second most important American nineteenth-century ideal society"E ...
'' (1883), Laurence Gronlund
Laurence Gronlund (, Available 1844–1899) was a Danish-born American lawyer, writer, lecturer, and political activist. Gronlund is best remembered for his pioneering work in adapting the International Socialism of Karl Marx and Ferdinand La ...
's ''The Co-operative Commonwealth'' (1884), and August Bebel
Ferdinand August Bebel (22 February 1840 – 13 August 1913) was a German socialist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) in 1869, which in 1875 mer ...
's ''Woman in the Past, Present, and Future'' (1886). For example, in ''The True Author of Looking Backward'' (1890) J. B. Shipley argued that Bellamy's novel was a repeat of Bebel's arguments, while literary critic R. L. Shurter went so far as to argue that "''Looking Backward'' is actually a fictionalized version of ''The Co-operative Commonwealth'' and little more". However, Bellamy's book also bears resemblances to the early socialist theorists or 'utopian socialists' Etienne Cabet, Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in ...
, Robert Owen
Robert Owen (; 14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropist and social reformer, and a founder of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement. He strove to improve factory working conditions, promoted e ...
, and Henri Saint-Simon
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon (), was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on p ...
, as well as to the 'Associationism' of Albert Brisbane
Albert Brisbane (August 22, 1809 – May 1, 1890) was an American utopian socialist and is remembered as the chief popularizer of the theories of Charles Fourier in the United States. Brisbane was the author of several books, notably ''Social D ...
, whom Bellamy had met in the 1870s.
Reaction and sequels
On publication, ''Looking Backward'' was praised by both the American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutu ...
and the Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was an American labor federation active in the late 19th century, especially the 1880s. It operated in the United States as well in Canada, and had chapters also ...
.[Robert E. Weir, ''Workers in America: A Historical Encyclopedia''.Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, 2013 (pp. 68–70).] Many members of the Knights read ''Looking Backward'' and also joined Bellamy's Nationalist clubs. ''Looking Backward'' was also praised by Daniel De Leon
Daniel De Leon (; December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914), alternatively spelt Daniel de León, was a Curaçaoan-American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather o ...
, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (August 7, 1890 – September 5, 1964) was a labor leader, activist, and feminist who played a leading role in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Flynn was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union ...
and Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in seve ...
.
In 1897, Bellamy wrote a sequel, ''Equality
Equality may refer to:
Society
* Political equality, in which all members of a society are of equal standing
** Consociationalism, in which an ethnically, religiously, or linguistically divided state functions by cooperation of each group's elite ...
'', dealing with women's rights, education, and many other issues. Bellamy wrote the sequel to elaborate and clarify many of the ideas merely touched upon in ''Looking Backward''.
The success of ''Looking Backward'' provoked a spate of sequels, parodies, satires, dystopian, and 'anti-utopian' responses. A partial list of these follows.
The result was a "battle of the books" that lasted through the rest of the 19th century and into the 20th. The back-and-forth nature of the debate is illustrated by the subtitle of Geissler's 1891 ''Looking Beyond'', which is "A Sequel to 'Looking Backward' by Edward Bellamy and an Answer to 'Looking Forward' by Richard Michaelis".
The book was translated into Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
in 1892. Bellamy personally approved a request by Bulgarian author to make an "adapted translation" based on the realities of Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
n social order. The resulting work, titled ''The Present as Seen by Our Descendants And a Glimpse at the Progress of the Future'' ("Настоящето, разгледано от потомството ни и надничане в напредъка на бъдещето"), generally followed the same plot. The events in Yovchev's version take place in an environmentally friendly
Environment friendly processes, or environmental-friendly processes (also referred to as eco-friendly, nature-friendly, and green), are sustainability and marketing terms referring to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies that clai ...
Sofia
Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...
and describe the country's unique path of adapting to the new social order. It is considered by local critics to be the first Bulgarian utopian work.
The book also influenced activists in Britain. Scientist Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural se ...
credited ''Looking Backward'' for his conversion to socialism. Politician Alfred Salter
Alfred Salter (16 June 1873 – 24 August 1945) was a British medical practitioner and Labour Party politician.
Early life
Salter was born in Greenwich in 1873, the son of Walter Hookway Salter and Elizabeth Tester. Following education at The ...
cited ''Looking Backward'' as an influence on his political thought.
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
's 1890
Events
January–March
* January 1
** The Kingdom of Italy establishes Eritrea as its colony, in the Horn of Africa.
** In Michigan, the wooden steamer ''Mackinaw'' burns in a fire on the Black River.
* January 2
** The steamship ...
utopia ''News from Nowhere
''News from Nowhere'' (1890) is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. It was first published in serial form in the ''Commonweal'' journal beginn ...
'' was partly written in reaction to Bellamy's utopia, which Morris did not find congenial.
Beyond the purely literary sphere, Bellamy's descriptions of utopian urban planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
had a practical influence on Ebenezer Howard
Sir Ebenezer Howard (29 January 1850 – 1 May 1928) was an English urban planner and founder of the garden city movement, known for his publication '' To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform'' (1898), the description of a utopian city in whi ...
's founding of the garden city movement
The garden city movement was a 20th century urban planning movement promoting satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated with greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, industry, and ...
in England, and on the design of the Bradbury Building
The Bradbury Building is an architecture, architectural landmark in downtown Los Angeles, California, United States. Built in 1893, the five-story office building is best known for its extraordinary skylit atrium of access walkways, stairs and el ...
in Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
.
During the Great Strikes of 1877, Eugene V. Debs
Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American socialism, socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five times the candidate ...
opposed the strikes and argued that there was no essential necessity for the conflict between capital and labor. Debs was influenced by Bellamy's book to turn to a more socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
direction. He soon helped to form the American Railway Union
The American Railway Union (ARU) was briefly among the largest labor unions of its time and one of the first industrial unions in the United States. Launched at a meeting held in Chicago in February 1893, the ARU won an early victory in a strike ...
. With supporters from the Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was an American labor federation active in the late 19th century, especially the 1880s. It operated in the United States as well in Canada, and had chapters also ...
and from the immediate vicinity of Chicago, workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company went on strike in June 1894. This came to be known as the Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike was two interrelated strikes in 1894 that shaped national labor policy in the United States during a period of deep economic depression. First came a strike by the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman factory in Ch ...
.
The book had a specific and intense reception in Wilhelminian Germany including various parodies and sequels, from Eduard Loewenthal
Eduard Model Accessories is a Czech manufacturer of plastic models and finescale model accessories.
Formed in 1989 in the city of Most, Eduard began in a rented cellar as a manufacturer of photoetched brass model components. Following the succ ...
, Ernst Müller and Philipp Wasserburg
Philipp Wasserburg (11 October 1827, Mainz - 13 April 1897, Gonsenheim) was a German Roman Catholic writer, publicist and member of the parliament of Hesse
Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: li ...
, Konrad Wilbrandt
Konrad is a German (with variants ''Kunz'' and ''Kunze'') given name and surname that means "bold counselor" and may refer to:
People Given name
Surname
*Alexander Konrad (1890–1940), Russian explorer
*Antoine Konrad (born 1975), birth name o ...
and Richard Michaelis
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Frankish language, Old Frankish and is a Compound (linguistics), compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' an ...
.
The Russian translation of ''Looking Backward'' was banned by the Tsarist Russian censors.
In the 1930s, there was a revival of interest in ''Looking Backward''. Several groups were formed to promote the book's ideas. The largest was Edward Bellamy Association of New York; its honorary members included John Dewey
John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the f ...
, Heywood Broun
Heywood Campbell Broun Jr. (; December 7, 1888 – December 18, 1939) was an American journalist. He worked as a sportswriter, newspaper columnist, and editor in New York City. He founded the American Newspaper Guild, later known as The Newspaper ...
and Roger N. Baldwin
Roger Nash Baldwin (January 21, 1884 – August 26, 1981) was one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He served as executive director of the ACLU until 1950.
Many of the ACLU's original landmark cases took place under ...
.[Aaron D. Purcell, ''Arthur Morgan: A Progressive Vision for American Reform''. University of Tennessee Press, 2014 (pp. 214–19)] Arthur Ernest Morgan
Arthur Ernest Morgan (June 20, 1878 – November 16, 1975) was a civil engineer, U.S. administrator, and educator. He was the design engineer for the Miami Conservancy District flood control system and oversaw construction. He served as the ...
, chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina ...
, also admired the book and wrote the first biography of Bellamy.
Legacy and later responses
''Looking Backward'' influenced the novel ''Future of a New China
''Xin Zhongguo weilai ji'' (, translated as ''The Future of New China'') is an unfinished 1902 novel by Liang Qichao. Liang described a China in 1962 that was a utopia,Keane, John. ''The Life and Death of Democracy''. Simon and Schuster, June 1, ...
'' by Liang Qichao
Liang Qichao (Chinese: 梁啓超 ; Wade–Giles, Wade-Giles: ''Liang2 Chʻi3-chʻao1''; Yale romanization of Cantonese, Yale: ''Lèuhng Kái-chīu'') (February 23, 1873 – January 19, 1929) was a Chinese politician, social and political act ...
.[ Wang, David D. W. "Translating Modernity." In: Pollard, David E. (editor). ''Translation and Creation: Readings of Western Literature in Early Modern China, 1840–1918''. ]John Benjamins Publishing
John Benjamins Publishing Company is an independent academic publisher in social sciences and humanities with its head office in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The company was founded in the 1960s by John and Claire Benjamins and is currently managed ...
, 1998. . Start: p
303
CITED: p
309
Despite never mentioning the book by name in any of his works, ''Looking Backward'' was likely highly influential in the creation of George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
's dystopia Nineteen Eighty-Four
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...
. Orwell often mocked highly idealistic socialist utopias, and would write of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
's The Soul of Man Under Socialism that 'these optimistic forecasts make rather painful reading'. Nineteen Eighty-Four
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...
could be seen as a negative take on the world of ''Looking Backward'', as he would write in the book itself 'Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined.'[George Orwell, ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949.]
''Looking Backward'' was rewritten in 1974 by American socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
science fiction writer Mack Reynolds
Dallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds (November 11, 1917 – January 30, 1983) was an American science fiction writer. His pen names included Dallas Ross, Mark Mallory, Clark Collins, Dallas Rose, Guy McCord, Maxine Reynolds, Bob Belmont, and Todd Har ...
as ''Looking Backward from the Year 2000''. Matthew Kapell
Matthew Wilhelm Kapell is a historian and anthropologist, with master's degrees in each discipline, who has a Ph.D. in American Studies.
Early in his career he co-authored chapters on the genetics of human growth and the effects of poverty on grow ...
, a historian and anthropologist, examined this re-writing in his essay, "Mack Reynolds' Avoidance of his own Eighteenth Brumaire: A Note of Caution for Would-Be Utopians".
In 1984, Herbert Knapp and Mary Knapp's '' Red, White and Blue Paradise: The American Canal Zone in Panama'' appeared. The book was in part a memoir of their careers teaching at fabled Balboa High School, but also a re-interpretation of the Canal Zone
The Panama Canal Zone ( es, Zona del Canal de Panamá), also simply known as the Canal Zone, was an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the Isthmus of Panama, that existed from 1903 to 1979. It was located within the terri ...
as a creature of turn-of-the-century Progressivism, a workers' paradise. The Knapps used Bellamy's ''Looking Backward'' as their heuristic model for understanding Progressive ideology as it shaped the Canal Zone.
A one-act play, ''Bellamy's Musical Telephone,'' was written by Roger Lee Hall and premiered at Emerson College in Boston in 1988 on the centennial year of the novel's publication. It was released as a DVD titled ''The Musical Telephone''.
The first 21st-century work based on Bellamy's novel was written in 2020 by American political scientist and utopian socialist
Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...
William P. Stodden, titled ''The Practical Effects of Time Travel: A Memoir''. The book, which differs significantly from the original, though follows a similar narrative arc, details a female protagonist's journey, via time machine, to a future where need has been eliminated via a strong Universal Basic Income
Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive an unconditional transfer payment, that is, without a means test or need to work. It would be received independently of a ...
and National Service Program, while cooperation has replaced competition. The book also discusses a strong influence of technology and robotics in freeing humans from grueling manual labor. The book focused heavily on moral and ethical theory and ethical socialism
Ethical socialism is a political philosophy that appeals to socialism on ethical and moral grounds as opposed to consumeristic, economic, and egoistic grounds. It emphasizes the need for a morally conscious economy based upon the principles of ...
, rather than materialism
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materiali ...
, as the ideological foundation of the utopian society.
See also
* Equality Colony
Equality Colony was a United States socialist colony founded in Skagit County, Washington (U.S. state), Washington by a political organization known as the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth in 1897. It was meant to serve as a model which ...
References
Further reading
* Edward Bellamy
''Looking Backward, 2000–1887.''
Boston: Ticknor and Co., 1888. – First edition.
* Edward Bellamy
''Looking Backward, 2000–1887.''
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1889. – Second edition.
* Edward Bellamy
"How I Came to Write ''Looking Backward,"''
''The Nationalist'' (Boston), vol. 1, no. 1 (May 1889), pp. 1–4.
* Wakren J. Samuels
"A Centenary Reconsideration of Bellamy's Looking Backward," ''The American Journal of Economics and Sociology'', 43(2):129–48
External links
*
Full text on gutenberg.org
*
* ''The Musical Telephone'
{{Authority control
1888 American novels
Novels set in Boston
Utopian novels
American novels adapted into plays
Bellamyism
1888 science fiction novels
American science fiction novels
Social science fiction
Fiction set in 2000
Novels set in the 2000s
Novels set in the 21st century
Novels set in the future
Rip Van Winkle-type stories
Censored books
Future history